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Karlin- I am on that same list and read that article. I don't feed her much of the pre-mades. I get most of my stuff from Wal-mart or Hy-vee. The business I work for sells Nature's Variety, and that is the kind of pre-made she gets. She gets it a few times a week. I am often the person putting away all of our products when we get them in, and I know it is frozen solid when we get it.

In Audrey's first 6 months of life we had two trips to the emergency vet, both for severe diarreah(sp?). The 1st time cost $350.00 because they ran tests for Parvo as it was a week after we got her at 10 weeks old. The 2nd time cost $275.00 to tell me nothing was wrong. Gave me the same I/D which I never gave her. I don't feed raw, but did make my own chicken and rice instead. Spending the money is worth it for the peace of mind. We would never forgive ourselves if we didn't go because of the expense and it turned out serious or worse still, fatal. I hope Paris is all recovered!!!!

Spending the money is worth it for the peace of mind. We would never forgive ourselves if we didn't go because of the expense and it turned out serious or worse still, fatal. I hope Paris is all recovered!!!!

Isn't that the truth!!?? I would much rather pay the money and have the peace of mind.

I think part of the point of the Wysong piece is that frozen raw (and raw in general) can carry some risk. There are definite cases of racing greyhounds fed raw diets getting ill and dying, for example, and it is known from autopsies that they died from exposure to organisms in raw beef. I have that situation in the back of my mind -- I do think there's always some risk to feed raw, just as there is to humans eating raw eggs for example or raw milk cheeses. I eat both and also like steak tartare and I've had no probems but clearly there are people who do get ill from contaminated raw foods from time to time. So perhaps that's what has happened with Paris. I think one aspect of the frozen foods issue also, is that while it may arrive completely frozen, it's impossible to tell how the food has been handled between the time it is first frozen til it reaches you.

Anyway it's an idea if nothing else seems to be making sense as to where she picked this up.

I'm always a bit up in the air about feeding raw, given the lack of studies on how risky exposure is to organsims in raw (especially from meat from large abbatoirs) but I do like to at least feed chicken necks for the bones for their teeth.

What does make sense to me is Wysong's argument that domestic dogs lack the resistence to the organisnms wild canids would be exposed to in rotting carcasses and therefore I do not know if I believe the argument that dogs are resistent to, say, salmonella (especially puppies). Humans for example will get extremely ill from stomach organisms in different geographies -- for example the runs you get from unpurified water in parts of Mexico. You can gain resistence by ingesting it and not treating it, but you are pretty sick for 3-4 weeks.

A boxer on another list I am on died from eating raw mince from the Supermarket! Apparently it would have been ok if the owner had frozen the meat and then fed it at a later stage thawed.
I have occasionally given mince like this to the only one of mine who likes raw.
I believe the organism involved is neospora caninum and the above occurrence is extremely rare.
Ruth

I remember reading several things on that raw mince issue. I think there is some debate on whether freezing would help -- if I remember the temperature would need to be much colder than a home freezer goes to kill the organism. I don't feed raw mince anymore; I just sear it, though the organism is supposed to only rarely cause death. Many dogs already have the irganism if I recall; only sometimes does it actually kill a dog but it is of serious concern to cattle farmers as it can make cattle very ill. The life cycle goes from cattle to dogs and back again. It causes abortions of calves.

Here is one vet's view of the organism and whether it should cause particular worry: